An offspinner whose work as a curator took him from Canberra to Adelaide, Nathan Lyon completed a remarkable rise when he was picked in Australia's Test squad in July 2011. The previous year, he had taken up a job on the Adelaide Oval groundstaff, and his bowling talent was spotted by the Redbacks' Big Bash coach Darren Berry. Lyon impressed in T20s for South Australia, made his first-class debut, and within seven months was a Test cricketer. A classical offspinner who flights the ball and looks for wickets, Lyon struck with his first ball in Test cricket when he had Kumar Sangakkara caught at slip in Galle. It was part of a haul of 5 for 34 and the beginning of a career that would, for the most part, end Australia's cycle of churning through Test spinners in the post-Warne era. By 2015, Lyon had become Australia's most successful Test offspinner of all time, passing Hugh Trumble's tally of 141 wickets, and he was affectionately nicknamed by his teammates as the GOAT - greatest of all time - as a result. Following the post-Ashes retirements of Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin and Shane Watson, he became one of the team's most experienced players.

However, Lyon's career was not without bumps along the way. In 2013 he was dropped from the Test team twice, first in India after he was attacked by MS Dhoni in the first Test in Chennai, and then for the first two Tests of the Ashes tour of England. The Ashes axing was especially galling for Lyon, given that he had taken nine wickets in his previous Test, the fourth and final Test of the Indian tour in Delhi, and he was overlooked for the uncapped teenager Ashton Agar. By the third Test of the Ashes, Lyon was rightfully back in the side and continued to be a consistent performer. One gap in his game had been the ability to bowl Australia to victory in the fourth innings of a Test, but he finally achieved that against India in Adelaide in 2014-15, in what became his first Man-of-the-Match performance.

He became just the sixth Australian to take 300 Test wickets, and only the second spinner behind Warne, in Cape Town, but the milestone was largely missed in the aftermath of the ball tampering scandal. He became one of Australia's most important players over the next 12 months but was overlooked for a leadership position.

Despite first making his name for South Australia in T20, Lyon has generally been considered by the national selectors a Test-only prospect. But in 2018-19 he became a regular member of Australia's one-day squad and was included in the 2019 World Cup squad.
ESPNcricinfo staff